Here's another apparent puzzler poll, this one coming from The Washington Post. In Virginia, a state that President Obama and Mitt Romney are showering with money and resources, voters split 50/50 on the question of who would a better job on economic policy. And yet, Obama has a significant high single-digit lead among likely voters. He leads 52 percent to 44 percent. As in other states, Virginians rank the economy as their most important voting issue.

I see this dynamic nationally and in a lot of the swing states. What it means is that voters have already conducted their referendum on the Obama economy, and made their conclusions about whether to vote for the president based on his economic performance. If they are persuadable, they are persuadable on other issues, issues that Romney isn't going to find much traction with. This is why doubling down on his core message and trying to turn out as many hardcore conservatives as possible might not be a bad tactical decision. In fact, it might be the only tactical decision available to him at this point.